


misread

by dykenance



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Boris POV, Holding Hands, Idiots in Love, M/M, Nail Polish, One Shot, Pining, Stream of Consciousness, Underage Drinking, boreo, its about the hands.... -gays everywhere, tw: mild mentions of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23166049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dykenance/pseuds/dykenance
Summary: Boris asks a drunk, less-than-thrilled Theo to paint his nails. Lots of messy hand-holding, pining, and bickering ensues.
Relationships: Theodore Decker & Boris Pavlikovsky, Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 3
Kudos: 109





	misread

**Author's Note:**

> title from song 'misread' by kings of convenience :-)

“You want me to do _what_?”

It’s late into the hazy evening, far past the point of Boris and Theo running out on some crazy, lucrative adventure--and thank god, because Theo’s been muttering nothing happy for the last fifteen minutes as they passively watched a movie, until finally Boris interrupted his stream of consciousness.

“Paint my nails, Potter, is pretty simple, no?”

Theo meets him with a disgruntled, crumply face, ruined by the stolen bottle of _Skyy_ at his side; his eyelids are practically glued but he’s pissy and argumentative even two steps from sleep. “Why the fuck do you think I’d have any nail polish?”

Boris throws back a, ‘Pah,’ and smacks around the floor loudly, stretching out to find his discarded coat, sitting up with a subtle _aha_ in his face as he brandishes the bottle of black polish he’d found in the pharmacy earlier. Theo, thoroughly unimpressed, rolls his eyes.

“Why do you want it, anyway? Won’t your dad be mad?” he says thickly, muddling the English so poorly that a younger Boris would strain to listen. It’s a miracle he understands anything from Theo’s mouth on nights like these; nights when, with worse circumstances, he’d start bickering with some kid in the mall, perch himself dangerously high on the playground and lift his arms, (‘ _like Titanic, just for fun, idiot_ ,’) or throw himself onto the first harsh surface he could find, leaving Boris to neatly sweep away the mess before would ever notice. Not that Boris ever minded; it was just silly, almost, to see him so wrecked from such small doses. And definitely scary when Theo had no regard for his life, and suddenly Boris was living for them both--the desire was hardly there anyway, but just enough with Theo on the line.

“Nah, he won’t be home.” Boris tinkers with the simple glassy container in his fingers, letting it roll on his palms and drop from hand to hand as a little game. “Like he would notice anyhow. Looks worse than you half the time, Potter.” He tosses it to an unresponsive Theo, and it lands in his lap, where he just stares for a few moments, spaced-out, before picking it up and uncapping it, gagging at the strong scent that immediately washes into the room. “Looks cool, right?”

Theo mumbles a half-hearted curse at him, then resolves to a, “Whatever. Come here.”

Theo’s funk settling in is nothing out of the usual for them; he starts the night wild and laughing at everything Boris says, school-girl giggling and clutching his arm, which is the perfect precursor to remind Boris why he has to keep them both afloat when shit falls apart a few hours later--when Theo cries, or pushes away, or mumbles self-hatred belonging to the real scum of the earth, those less self-conscious than Theo, those less deserving. All Boris can do is try to create a love he’s never known, really, but one the boy stupidly introduced him to. 

And damn him to hell for that.

Boris scoots forward to be closer to Theo, who’s resting against his bed frame, on the floor, feet tucked up neatly under his thighs in the ‘applesauce’ position. Boris lets his legs stretch out on either side of him, sticks a shaky hand out, and tries to hold it up in the air alone, because he can’t see a world where he rests it on the boy’s leg and he doesn’t deck him.

Theo grabs Boris’s wrist sloppily with one hand, and tries to leave the bottle on the ground, dip the brush thing into it carefully, but his shaky disposition knocks it over, and he swears again; the liquid is slow-moving, at least, and he picks it up with only a small stain left behind as any proof. He starts with Boris’s pinky, leaning forward with much intent, but the brush is extra gloopy and it seeps into the skin of Boris’s finger. Theo pauses, tries to dig the paint out with his own nail, and is somehow shocked when it stains his skin. Boris grumbles a, ‘ _Bozhe moy_ ,’ with a chuckle, and Theo wipes the garnish on the carpet and gets back to business.

Having a wildly-crossed Theo attempt to do this job is quite the experience, as he probably wouldn’t be so hot at it even sober, but like this--shit, it’s bad. Earlier, they had turned most lights off, wanting a break from the brightness and to ‘embrace the dark’ and some other depressing poetic bullshit philosopher-Theo was pulling out of his ass, and Boris had just laughed a ton and smacked the light switches down to appease him, so all Theo really had to go by now was the light of the television and the moon breaking through the curtains.

Theo slips again when he gets to Boris’s forefinger, groaning in frustration and glaring at his hand, as though it’s somehow its fault.

“Careful now, Potter, don’t make a mess,” he grins.

“Fuck you.”

To avoid the awful joke that crosses his mind, Boris lifts his head and clicks his tongue, shaking disapprovingly. “Mother tongue, Potter?”

Listening to drunk-Theo attempt to repeat fast Ukrainian or Polish or _anything_ is one of Boris’s favorite pastimes, anyway--he can take advantage of the guy a little bit, alright?

“Fine, how do you say it?”

“ _Poshel na huy_.”

“Cool, posh-el-nah-hoo-ey. Fuck off.”

“Aye, play nice,” Boris manages through a laugh, examining the blackened tips of his fingers. Theo follows the gesture of his hand with his eyes and yanks it back to finish up his thumb.

He’s very focused at this moment; holding Boris’s hand steady with his own similarly unsteady hand, trembling like the wings of a bee in front of both of their eyes; he’s staring at the messy polish caught on Boris’s bony, milky white fingers, and doing his best to just coat the nail and not the entire beds and knuckles surrounding.

As he moves onto Boris’s other hand, glazed eyes locking on their fingers caught in a tender gesture, Boris recognizes that he’s sort of, by some distant definition, holding hands with Theo. And it’s fucking strange.

Before, he’s woken up with Theo draped along his torso, or sniffling into his shoulder, or curled up in fetal-position after a night that left them with deepening violet bruises; but the boy annoyingly always forgets it, or at least he does not acknowledge it. These are the best nights of Boris’s life, times that make his heart pound and his mind come up with something other than visceral definitions of _I love you_ , but they’re all long lost in Theo’s blackout habits.

Tomorrow, he’ll probably ask when Boris did this to himself, make fun of the fucked up nails, and move on. He won’t remember that he clung to Boris’s hand carefully, lifted his wrist to inspect and clean to the best of his ability, traced his fingers along the lines of his hands like they belonged as one.

But for now he’s fucking up Boris’s left hand and swearing to himself in Polish, which makes Boris smile a little--his pronunciation is far from perfect, but he’s murmuring words that Boris has said so offhandishly that he didn’t think Theo was paying attention, but he was. God, he’s an anomaly.

“There.”

Boris flashes all ten fingers in front of his face and lets his eyes sweep across. “They’re hideous, Potter,” he laughs, and then he notices that that fucker left one blank. He flicks his left middle finger up and says, “What is this about?”

Theo snorts and takes hold of the finger, strangely, and pulls it closer to himself. “It suits you.” He turns Boris’s hand over and trails his finger along his middle one over and over, pressing at the skin.

Boris shivers at the touch--it’s just a strange spot, alright--and grabs Theo’s wrist. He takes the polish and coats Theo’s left middle finger with it, pulls it closer, and blows. “You too.”

Slower than ever, Theo gazes at it, groans, and says, “You suck.”

“You more, idiot.”

And then they’re both cracking up laughing; and they sit with matching nails, matching bruises, matching dispositions to the world; and eventually they succumb to the moon and the stars and the gentle breeze of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> based on a Tumblr prompt: ‘you want me to do what?’  
> this is my first time writing for boreo, I hope you like it! feel free to listen to my 'vegas' playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/640TmiVg8X7xM3jTx69j31?si=T8PwKFpYTfy9KSOBM9MHCQ


End file.
